7 Things that You Can Do If Cold Sores Are Ruining Your Life

If you’ve ever experienced a cold sore, you know how embarrassing they can be. On top of the pain and discomfort they cause, they can create inflammation, redness, crusting, and more. While they go away on their own in several days, that doesn’t always make dealing with one easy.

Unfortunately, being prone to cold sores can make matters even worse. If you regularly experience fever blisters, they can begin to affect your life and relationships negatively. It’s true that cold sores making dating more difficult. Not only are there exaggerated stigmas that sometimes go along with these blisters, but it’s easy to feel as though people are only looking at the sore on your face if you have one.

The best thing you can do for cold sores is to find a treatment option that gets rid of them faster. Healing a cold sore will not only reduce the discomfort and pain but will reduce the intensity of the unsightly symptoms. However, even with treatment, it can take a few days for cold sores to disappear.

This article will cover what you can do if cold sores are ruining your life and relationships. We’ll offer several tips you can use to help get rid of the problem. This includes a few ideas on how to keep cold sores from showing up all the time.

How Can Cold Sores Affect Your Quality of Life?

Not only are cold sores painful, but depending on the severity, they can be ugly. This combination means that most people want to hide cold sores or get rid of them as soon as possible. Beyond that, though, they can affect the relationships in your life because they are so contagious.

The most important thing to understand about cold sores is that they go through different stages. You should never assume that you’re in the clear of spreading the sore at any stage. However, cold sores typically become the most contagious, painful, and unsightly during the crusting stage.

After a blister forms, it will eventually burst open. This causes it to ooze. While this oozing can be a painful experience, it’s necessary for healing. After the sore has burst, it will scab over. Again, this can be painful, but it’s a sign that the sore is going through the right healing process.

However, the scabbing process can be somewhat risky if you’re not taking proper care of the sore. This is especially true for sores on or around the lips. When the scab forms, it can be easy for it to crack open again if you open your mouth too wide, accidentally touch it, etc. If the scab does crack open, it can cause bleeding. Not only can this lengthen your healing time, but it also opens you up to possible infection.

As you can see, the normal process of a cold sore can affect your life in multiple ways, which is why we like the FDA approved Virulite cold sore device. Though allowing it to heal on its own is always an option, using some of the tips in this article can make the process easier.

1.Talk to Your Doctor

Cold sores are the result of the herpes simplex virus (HSV-1). If you have the virus, it typically sits dormant inside your body. You may have it, even if you’ve never experienced cold sores. However, for some people, flare-ups are more common. They can be triggered by a variety of different things, including:

Getting a blister once in a while probably isn’t a big deal for most people. But, for people who regularly experience them, a prescription treatment may be necessary. When you start on an effective prescription, you can take it at the first sign of a cold sore. For someone who gets cold sores regularly, the earlier you can start treating them, the better. They will be less severe if you can use a prescription when you first notice symptoms.

Don’t Cover It

It’s easy to want to cover up your cold sore with makeup to hide it. Unfortunately, that could do more harm than good. Makeup that is non-medicated could irritate the blister and make it worse. If the sore is at the cracking stage, allowing makeup to seep into it could also put you at risk for infection.

Instead, continue to apply either a prescription or over-the-counter treatment, like Abreva gel. These treatments will help to prevent infection and will keep the sore from getting worse and more unsightly.

Additionally, there are medicated patches you can put on top of the cold sore if you want to apply makeup. These patches will protect the sore from infection and irritation, and allow you to cover the blister. However, it’s always better to avoid covering the sore with anything for too long, so it can be exposed to the air and heal faster.

Take a Pain Reliever

Aside from the embarrassment that can come from blisters, they can also be painful. If you have a severe cold sore, the pain can almost feel unbearable. Many times, cold sores become red and inflamed. When they crust over, they are also prone to crack open, and they can even bleed.

Taking a pain reliever, like Tylenol or Advil, will not only help to reduce the pain but work as an anti-inflammatory. Make sure the pain reliever you choose has anti-inflammatory properties, and you can fight back against two of the symptoms of cold sores at once. If a pain reliever can reduce the redness and swelling of the sore, it will also become less noticeable.

Reduce Swelling

Along with using an anti-inflammatory product, you can reduce the swelling on your sore with an ice pack. If the sore becomes red and inflamed, an ice pack can help to bring down the swelling. It can also provide a bit of relief for a while, as it numbs the area.

If you’re using a cold sore treatment regularly, but need to get swelling down quickly, a cold compress or ice pack is a great temporary fix. It’s also something you can do in the comfort of your own home, whenever you have a bit of extra time. If you’re used to experiencing cold sores, try to apply ice regularly at the earliest signs of symptoms for even better results at reducing swelling.

Don’t Risk Spreading It

If you’re in a relationship, having a cold sore can be even more embarrassing. It may be tempting just to hide away until the blister goes away, but that’s not very realistic. However, you do have to be responsible when it comes to reducing the risk of spreading.

If your partner (or friends, family) have the herpes simplex virus, they can get a cold sore just as easily as you. While this doesn’t mean you need to quarantine yourself away from daily life until the sore is gone, it does mean you should take some precautions.

Living with someone can make it difficult not to spread a cold sore. You don’t have to make direct contact with a person for the virus to spread. It can be contracted through toothbrushes, utensils, sharing drinks, etc. Keep your living partner away from these items, and get a new toothbrush when the sore is healed.

You should also be sure to wash sheets and towels as soon as possible after the blister has healed. If someone you live with uses them and they haven’t been properly cleaned, they can easily catch the virus.

Kissing your partner should be off limits when you are experiencing a flare-up unless you want them to contract a sore themselves. It may be an embarrassing ordeal, but those closest to you will appreciate the precautions you’re taking, so they don’t have to experience an outbreak themselves.

Take L-Lysine

L-Lysine is an amino acid. It is often used to treat cold sores because it reacts with l-arginine, which helps to activate HSV-1. You can get l-lysine from different foods, but if you’re prone to flare-ups, you may want to additionally take a supplement, or use a topical solution. Taking an l-lysine supplement can reduce the number of flare-ups you have. It can also reduce their severity.

Foods like seeds, nuts, and chocolate, are rich in arginine. If you enjoy eating these foods regularly and experience a lot of cold sores, that could be why. Introducing more L-lysine can help to offset the arginine in your diet. So, you can enjoy eating more of the foods you love without having to worry about a flare-up.

Manage Your Diet

Most of us think about what we eat in a day when it comes to things like weight loss, heart health, etc. However, your diet can affect how easy it is to experience a cold sore flare-up, too. One of the biggest triggers is acidic foods. These include things like oranges, grapefruits, lemon, tomatoes, and vinegar. If you notice a correlation between what you eat and how often you experience a flare-up, adjust your diet accordingly.

A poor diet, in general, can also aid in triggering a blister flare-up. Many times, we get cold sores due to a weakened immune system. Overeating refined sugar, fat, and carbohydrates can not only weaken the immune system but cause hormonal imbalances. This makes it much easier for outbreaks to occur.

Finally, your diet should regularly consist of things to offset acidity and foods that contain probiotics. If you’re unsure as to whether or not your diet might be causing cold sore outbreaks, talk to your doctor about what you should and shouldn’t do.

What Else Can I Do to Prevent Cold Sores?

If you have the herpes simplex virus, it’s never 100% possible to prevent cold sores all the time. However, there are a few precautionary steps you can take to help reduce the risk of an outbreak. Some of these steps include:

Avoid stress as much as possible and identify your biggest stress triggers

Preventing cold sores isn’t always possible. But, with a few simple changes or additions, you can put up a good defense against them. Prevention is always a much better option than having to treat a cold sore once it shows up.

Will I Ever Stop Getting Cold Sores?

Once you contract the herpes simplex virus, you have it for life. There is no cure for the virus as of yet. Many people even contract it as children and don’t experience any symptoms for years, if ever.

Use some of these tips to help fight back against cold sores before they happen. Additionally, some of the advice can also help your cold sores to heal faster and become less painful. There may never be a way to avoid them completely, but having HSV-1 doesn’t have to ruin your life or your relationships. Identify the warning signs and apply either HERP-B-GONE cream or use the Virulite cold sore machine.

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